


everything is about you (to me)

by kritiquer



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, but it gets resolved, talk to each other i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24262720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kritiquer/pseuds/kritiquer
Summary: “Well, his name’s Otteli, I was wondering if you knew about him?”Eliott shakes his head a little too quickly, enough to garner Lucas’ suspicion. Maybe he does know him, but he wants his identity to be a secret? I mean why else wouldn’t he just tell him, right?or, an au where lucas loves otteli's art, his best friend eliott, and doesn't know they're the same person
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 5
Kudos: 151





	everything is about you (to me)

He didn’t know exactly when he’d realized he’d fallen in love with Otteli’s art, but all of Otteli’s paintings held a whisper of loneliness, a touch of emotion he couldn’t look away from; and just like that they had etched themselves a spot in Lucas’ head forever. He had never understood the impact of art until then, had never realized art could say _look at me. I feel the same way you do, do you see it?_ And maybe it wasn’t all art--he certainly wasn’t going to visit art museums any time soon--but Otteli’s art had comforted him when he seemed beyond the point of comfort, and he had the overwhelming urge to tell someone about it, to share this small piece of wonder with someone else. 

He was in Eliott’s room now, watching him as he sat curled up on the windowsill, a sketchpad balanced precariously on his lap. It was the perfect opportunity to tell him about Otteli, and as much as Lucas hated snapping Eliott out of his drawing fervor, he didn’t think he could wait any longer. 

“Hey, Eliott?” 

Eliott hums in response, flipping his sketchbook closed. He rubs at his eye as he waits for Lucas to continue, leaving streaks of charcoal on his cheek. It’s so endearing that for a second Lucas forgets what he was going to say altogether, and he wonders how he’s ever held a single conversation with Eliott without being distracted by his sharp cheekbones and endearing smile. 

Maybe back when they were 10, and Lucas didn’t know any better. Or when they were 11, and Eliott was just Lucas’ best friend, the cool boy-next-door with soft paint brushes and even softer smiles. He’d let Lucas use them once, an entire afternoon spent in Eliott’s room with canvases and paint splattered all around them. It had been a truly enlightening experience for Lucas, to say the least: he’d ended the day with a mess of blues and greens on his canvas, and Eliott had shyly held up his own canvas; it was an exact replica of their reference. It was then that Lucas had decided that maybe Eliott could be artistically talented enough for the both of them; Lucas wasn’t a fan of paint anyway. 

“You know how I’ve never really been into art?” 

“Sure, Lucas,” Eliott nods. “And you come to my art exhibitions anyway. Is this about that? Because I really appreciate you coming, you know.” 

_I come to those for_ you _, not for art,_ Lucas wants to say, but instead he just shakes his head. 

“No, this isn't about that. There’s this street artist’s work I’ve seen around that’s really interested me, that’s all.” 

Lucas watches as Eliott shifts so he can see Lucas more clearly, as if he realizes that the conversation’s shifted from playful to serious. 

“What about them?” 

“Well, his name’s Otteli, I was wondering if you knew about him?” 

Eliott shakes his head a little too quickly, enough to garner Lucas’ suspicion. Maybe he does know him, but he wants his identity to be a secret? _I mean why else wouldn’t he just tell him, right?_

“Not personally. I’ve heard about him, though. What do you like about his art?” 

And just like that, Lucas doesn’t know where to start. He’s written _essays_ in his head about Otteli’s art before, felt tears spring to his eyes when a particular piece stings more than it should. 

“You don’t have to explain,” Eliott smiles reassuringly. “It’s an emotion, right? His art makes you feel seen.” 

It would’ve sounded trite coming out of someone else’s mouth, and Lucas would’ve retorted with a _yeah, no shit._ But it’s Eliott, and it’s true, so he simply nods. 

“That’s something really special, Lucas,” Eliott leans forward, and taps a finger lightly against Lucas’ knee. “I’m glad you found him.” 

When he leans back, Lucas wants to grab his wrist and tug him back, wanting him to lean into Lucas instead, his hair tickling his chin. 

_I’m glad I found you._

And Eliott looks up, almost as if he understands, his eyes alight as he picks up his sketchpad and resumes his drawing. 

It’s on the way back from his shift at the coffee shop that he notices it, tucked into a narrow alley. The alley is simpler than anywhere Otteli typically paints, and Lucas can’t help but wonder why he chose a random alley to paint his latest piece. Much less an alley fairly close to an obnoxious hipster cafe. 

The sky has darkened enough for Otteli’s glow-in-the-dark signature to pop against the grey concrete, and Lucas slips into the alley. Distinctly he remembers that stepping into dimly lit alleys probably isn’t a good idea, but he figures if Otteli can dangle off bridges and paint on top of impossibly high buildings, he can squeeze into an alley. 

It takes him a minute or two to find the art, and then he has to take a double take, convinced that he must be seeing things wrong. The painting is more basic than anything Otteli’s ever done; it’s a scattering of stars that would seem insignificant to anyone else, but Lucas remembers spending an entire afternoon helping Eliott glue glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling when they were 10. The stars are still on his ceiling, even though occasionally they’ll fall down and Eliott will complain about being awoken by a fallen star on his face. He’s never taken them down, though, and Lucas has never asked why. 

Now he wishes he had, because the smattering of carefully stenciled stars are exactly the ones that Lucas has seen a hundred times, and he’s trying to convince himself that it’s a coincidence, but it seems too much of a shot in the dark to be true. He’s so caught up in his surprise that he almost misses the words written on the bottom, and he shines his phone’s flashlight on the wall curiously. 

_“and i said to the star—consume me.”_

Virginia Woolf. Eliott’s favorite author, the one he won’t stop raving about. Lucas knows he owns every single Virginia Woolf book, and could probably quote her work by heart. It’s another sign that Otteli’s Eliott, and the evidence makes it impossible for Lucas to ignore. Even then, he desperately wants to think otherwise, and wants to believe Eliott when he said he didn’t know who Otteli was. _Maybe they were friends, and Eliott gave him the idea?_ Lucas can’t help but feel a little stung; the stars were _their_ thing, and he had always assumed Eliott felt the same. In a way, it’s almost as if he’s being forced to face reality: Eliott isn’t in love with him, why would he give some glow-in-the-dark stars so much significance? 

He snaps a quick picture of the art anyway, and considers setting it as his phone’s wallpaper. _Would Eliott notice?_ Why should he even care, really? But he does, far too much, and he thinks his life would be so, so much easier if he didn’t. So maybe he should make an effort to not care, shouldn’t he? It’s what he tells himself as he finally walks away from the alley and starts heading home, ignoring the way he almost turns towards the street that takes him to Eliott. 

It’s a cloudy day, one of those that drapes its dreariness across every surface and seeps into the air. Lucas thinks everything is moving in slow-motion, surely, because he’s read the same question three times and hasn’t managed to answer it yet. It’s talking about mRNA translation, and Lucas wants to translate what those long, soft looks Eliott sends him sometimes mean instead. 

“Hey, Lucas?” 

Lucas looks away from the dizzying world of proteins and at Eliott instead, and he swears he can feel his head tilt, everything slightly out of focus. Eliott is smiling at him in a slightly sheepish way, but his eyes are gleaming. _He’s figured something out,_ Lucas realizes, and wishes he knew what it was. 

“Could you get me my set of charcoals from my desk?” 

Normally he’d protest, mumble a half-hearted _get it yourself,_ but today he nods and sets his book down. 

Lucas nudges Eliott’s ajar door open with his foot, and heads over to his desk, rummaging through the pile of sketchbooks and pens littering it. 

There’s a piece of paper tucked away between the charcoal set and another sketchpad, and he gently nestles it out. It’s placed in a way that seems rushed and careful all at once, as if Eliott wanted to hide it but didn’t go through with checking to see if it actually was. Lucas knows he probably shouldn’t look at it, but there’s a biting suspicion coloring his mind and he can’t help it; he doesn’t think he’d be able to go on without making sure he isn’t overthinking the drawing he saw the other day. 

The paper’s creased lightly, and Lucas knows immediately the sketch can’t be more than a week old. He almost closes his eyes when he finally unfolds it, his fear running across the page in a beautifully drawn sketch. It’s the exact same one he had stumbled upon a few days ago, marked with Eliott’s tell-tale annotations along the drawing: measurements and hastily written thoughts to come back to. _Draw the stars further apart, write the quote above or below?_ Lucas wants to add another one: _tell Lucas, or keep lying?_

He feels his eyes water, sees the world swim away from him and grow blurry. For a moment he doesn’t know what to do, and then he forces himself to take a breath, to remember he’s still in Eliott’s room. 

Then he wants to crumple the drawing away, tear it to pieces. It can’t exist if he can’t see it, right? Or worse, he wants to storm out of Eliott’s room with it clutched in his hand, and wave the paper in his face. Demand an answer. Fight until he gets one. 

But, as luck would have it, he gets to do neither. He hears Eliott’s footsteps before he sees him, then curses himself for recognizing his footsteps in the first place. How did he let himself fall so deeply for this boy, and why didn’t anyone stop him? Why didn’t anyone yell stop and pull him away, why didn’t they tell him love hurts and it breaks and it doesn’t do anything but drag him further into the ground? 

“Why are you looking through my things?” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Lucas’ voice is barbed with hurt he’d tried so desperately to hide, but his attempts at feigning nonchalance were halfhearted, and even then he wasn’t sure if he could pretend Eliott’s secrecy hadn’t disoriented him. Lucas liked to know all the facts, and he liked to think he knew how things worked. But this was an unexpected twist in his presumed conceptions, and he didn’t know how to react. After all, they were best friends, weren’t they? Or had Lucas somehow lost that title as well? He had given up on ever becoming anything more than friends, but this felt more like a rejection than anything else. 

“Lucas, I tried to,” Eliott’s voice is strained, words slipping past each other in a hurry to explain, to try and fix this. “I really did.” 

And Lucas wants to see Eliott try, wants an explanation and for this to all make sense again. For _them_ to make sense. 

“It’s just--you talked about him like he was this great guy, who showed you the true meaning of art, and who you genuinely admired,” Eliott pauses, and if he doesn’t finish his explanation soon, Lucas thinks he’ll scream. His patience is wearing thin, and he loves Eliott, he really does, but his heart aches for them both. 

“But it’s just me, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t think I could handle it, not from you.” 

Oh. _Oh._

All of a sudden Lucas can’t stand it, and he almost starts laughing. They’re both absolute messes, aren’t they? How could Eliott think he was anything less than the “great guy” Lucas had made Otteli out to be? Otteli’s art had moved him, but he had never felt the way he did when he was around Eliott with anyone else. As if every fibre in his being was alight, as if he was someone special. He loved Eliott, always had. _Wasn’t it written on every inch of his face, didn’t it seep into his tone whenever he uttered a single word?_

“Eliott, you moron,” Lucas breathes. “I’m in love with you. I always have been, even before I knew you were Otteli, even now. And don’t you think it makes sense? No wonder the art was so special to me, Eli, it was _yours_. How could it not be?” 

“Lucas,” Eliott’s voice is softer than he’s ever heard it, and for a second Lucas panics. 

_Is this it, then? The rejection?_

But no, Eliott walks closer and grabs Lucas’ hands. For a moment they both stand waiting in silence. 

“I love you too, you know,” Eliott runs a thumb over Lucas’ knuckles. “Why do you think I added the stars? They were for you, Lucas. Always.” 

“Really?” Lucas can feel his resolve wither away, and Eliott nods, releasing his hand to run it through Lucas’ hair instead. 

“Always.” He repeats, and it sounds like a promise. 

Lucas pulls him closer, until Eliott loops his arms around his neck and Lucas tucks his head under Eliott’s chin. 

“And I’m sorry, Lucas. I should’ve told you sooner.”

Lucas hums, opens his mouth to respond, but Eliott continues speaking before he can. 

“I’ll try and tell you things like that from now on, okay? I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.” 

“We both will.” 

Lucas loses track of time in Eliott’s arms, and almost lets out a complaint when Eliott steps back. 

“I was actually planning on painting something new tonight,” he admits, tracing a fingertip over Lucas’ nose, eyebrow, cheek. “Do you want to come with me?” It’s as if he’s trying to memorize Lucas’ face, and Lucas wants to grab his hand and tell him that he’s not leaving, not ever. Instead he feels Eliott run his fingertip over the shell of his ear, his jaw, and finally lightly across his lips. Lucas kisses his fingertip as he does so, smiling at the way Eliott’s face lights up. 

“Let’s go,” he says, and Eliott grins, shrugging his backpack on and grabbing Lucas’ hand. 

Eliott informs him about the safety precautions and about his art idea as they descend the stairs out of Eliott’s apartment, but Lucas is too focused on the feeling of Eliott’s hand against his to really pay attention. He hadn’t thought art could make him feel this way, but he should’ve known better. Art was in everything, he realized, watching the way Eliott’s paint splattered hand pointed things out on their walk. _No,_ Lucas corrected. _Art brought him Eliott._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, let me know what you think! i'm @kritiquer on tumblr, come say hi :)


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